Do not think you can say that England batted any better than Australia did, generally the Australian batsman were far bettter but they all failed at the same time, and those two occasions cost them. I was on the whole very dissapointed by the English batting, only Strauss and Trott really comes out of this series well, Prior just about ok. Swann and Broad did really well but the top 6 (apart from Strauss were poor.

I dont think England batted very well this series either, but I wasn't expecting them to. For me the Ashes would come down to how well England would bowl and whilst I was hopeful about Onions, Broad, Anderson and to a lesser extent Harmison being difficult to face, I was mostly disappointed with the lot of them at the end of the series. However, the 3 of them all bowled impressive match turning spells at some point in the series so it does make me hopeful about them once again for SA.

Regarding the batting, Cook, Bopara and Collingwood were a real let down. Prior failed to convert his starts and if he's batting at 6 he really needs to score 100s. I am hopeful about Trott but still not convinced and Strauss was very good but he too struggled to convert his conversion rate in the series. I am not really sure what to make of Ian Bell at the moment, he seriously frustrates me in that he fails to convert his scores, but he was very impressive on his way to 72.

Tendulkar = the most overated player EVER!!
Beckham = the most overated footballer EVER!!
Vassell = the biggest disgrace since rikki clarke!!

I dont think England batted very well this series either, but I wasn't expecting them to. For me the Ashes would come down to how well England would bowl and whilst I was hopeful about Onions, Broad, Anderson and to a lesser extent Harmison being difficult to face, I was mostly disappointed with the lot of them at the end of the series. However, the 3 of them all bowled impressive match turning spells at some point in the series so it does make me hopeful about them once again for SA.

Regarding the batting, Cook, Bopara and Collingwood were a real let down. Prior failed to convert his starts and if he's batting at 6 he really needs to score 100s. I am hopeful about Trott but still not convinced and Strauss was very good but he too struggled to convert his conversion rate in the series. I am not really sure what to make of Ian Bell at the moment, he seriously frustrates me in that he fails to convert his scores, but he was very impressive on his way to 72.

I have always rather stood up for Bell but I would be pretty surprised if he is ever really sucesfull as a number 3 but if England play 6 batsman (I think they should) then he can do a pretty good job at 5 or 6, you can say what you want about him only scoring when other have and all that but he is a pretty good test number 6 and will score runs against most sides. A middle order of Pietersen, Trott, Bell and Prior seems quite decent to me, I am sure he can do just as a good job as Collingwood in that role. Just have no idea who should bat number 3.

AUS tactic in dropping Hughes quite sensibly was to pick Watson since he presumably could bowl, so as give AUS 5-bowlers in the 3rd test.

Watson did 50% of the job since he negated Flintoff. But the next half was incomplete since the two overs he bowled was awful.

That's why I think it was an awful selection, Watto is a potent enough bowler to fill in as a 5th bowler, but he hardly had any overs under his belt leading into the third test, and more importantly it was foolish of us to expect Watto to open the batting, and also consistently chip in as a bowler, therefore clearly we would have been better off sticking with our proper opener, instead of pushing Watto to do that job.

As for Flintoff, he was never much of factor as bowler after the Lord's test, was he, so don't know what big feat Watto achieved by negating him.

Whilst I dont deny that the batting messed up during that innings, I just dont ascribe to that theory. The bowlers failed to take 20 wickets in 4 out of 5 tests this series. Yes, they took 19 wickets in 2 of the games, but the bowlers were largely to blame for the fact that they couldn't get the 20th wicket at Cardiff in 11 odd overs which would have retained the Ashes for them. That statistic does not lie for me, the batting failed in one inning but it delivered in almost all of the other innings. The bowlers not being able to take 20 wickets in 4 tests against a batting as poor as England's is for me the most important fact to take away from the series

Nope, don't agree with this, it very easy to blame our inexperienced bowling attack for this debacle, but I think the blame lies firmly with the batting line-up, we had three shoddy 1st innings batting performances in this, and unsurprisingly for most of the time we were on the receiving end in all three of those tests.

Its also pretty easy to say that we should have taken that last wicket at Cardiff, and tbh 9 times out of 10, we might knock over Jimmy or Monty in that sort of situation, but at times you just need to accept that some things are just not meant to be, on that Cardiff pitch where English bowlers were just able to take 6 Aussie wickets, it was a very good effort on the part of our bowlers to get us that close to winning the game, but unfortunately we weren't good enough to take that final wicket.

Pretty easy to give the bowling attack stick about not taking 20 wickets, but it wasn't like they were blessed with the chance when they were bowling in the third innings already 200 runs behind in two of the Tests.

As much as I love the guy, you've got to think that taking McDonald over there instead of an extra batsman was a mistake. In the end, he was never close to getting a game.

Oh, and things that make me laugh include certain posters who bag Ponting's captaincy because of team selections...

AWTA

Also partially agree with TEC that our bowling was a big problem. However, I still think the batsmen are just as much to blame. It really shouldn't be too much to ask of the batsmen to not collapse in a heap everytime the opposition has a good spell of bowling.

Originally Posted by Jono

Mitch Johnson is ****ing awesome for cricket.

Originally Posted by pasag

Ponting's ability to ton up in the first innings of a series should not be understated. So much pressure, so important. What a great!

Pretty easy to give the bowling attack stick about not taking 20 wickets, but it wasn't like they were blessed with the chance when they were bowling in the third innings already 200 runs behind in two of the Tests.

Not to mention the short turn-around time between bowling in England's 1st dig vs 2nd dig.

Lord's especially; as I said at the time, having to front up to bowl again having bowled your guts out less than a day before, around 200 runs behind in the game, etc. Big ask. The bowling was pretty manful this series.

"I must admit I thought it might have spun later in the game." "But I thought on the first two or three days even though it was dry there were some little green bits of grass, which I thought meant there might have been a bit of moisture underneath keeping that grass alive. I certainly feel as though I misread the wicket in that regard"

I can't believe this, was he hallucinating or something, because from what I saw, there wasn't a signle blade of live grass on that deck, I also find the argument from Ponting that "England too misread the pitch otherwise they would have played two spinners" to be pretty lame, they simply didn't pick MSP because he isn't good enough.

Sutherland was already remeniscing about the SA series on the radio tonight

I think TEC is on the money, whilst our bowling IMO was good bar Johnson, given the pre series expectations most Australians would have held, it was the simple fact that England's bowlers when the conditions were right were able to put together such a higher standard of bowling (i.e. they had more in the shed not just that we underpeformed), coupled with our middle order failing to stem the tide during these periods, that allowed England to win their two matches so convincingly.

But I don't think our batting failed 1 time it was 3 times that we collapsed, if we think back to RSA i'm pretty sure we had an innings in each match where we were rolled in quick time also, that's a worrying trend.

James Sutherland, Cricket Australia's chief executive, has said sacking Ricky Ponting from the captaincy would be "completely unfair" and has praised his leadership through the Ashes. Australia lost The Oval Test by 197 runs and conceded their second Ashes defeat to England this decade.

"Ricky's had a very, very good series," Sutherland told reporters. "He's been under incredible pressure. I thought the dignity and poise that he showed in defeat was something that all Australians should be very proud of."

He also absolved the National Selection Panel (NSP) of responsibility for the defeat in England. One of the talking points in the post mortem was the omission of the offspinner Nathan Hauritz, which captain Ricky Ponting and coach Tim Nielsen admitted was a blunder. Hauritz's counterpart Graeme Swann proved why a spinner was so essential on that pitch as he picked up eight wickets. Sutherland defended the team management for the final line-up, implying that not all gambles are likely to pay-off.

"I think everyone will be looking for people to blame. I don't think that in anyway we can hold the selectors accountable for us losing the Ashes," Sutherland told Sportal. "At the end of the day, the players go out and do the business on the field.

"Only six or seven months ago we had a fantastic series in South Africa where we beat the No.1 team in the world (2-1 in the Tests) with a pretty similar line-up. The selectors were hailed for their selection, I guess in some ways the perceived risks they took in backing young talent. I think it would be jumping to conclusions to be blaming the selectors for this."

Sutherland said it would be unfair to criticise the decision to play a four-pronged pace attack at the expense of Hauritz, while it was clear that Australia effectively lost the game when they conceded a huge first-innings lead of 172.

"That's something that the selectors can explain for themselves," Sutherland said. "Whether that had any bearing on the result of the game, who will know? We've lost the game by 200 runs, it's a pretty significant defeat, and having a spinner in the side wouldn't have helped us in the first innings, where we were bowled out for 160 and effectively lost the game."

With Australia free-falling to No.4 in the latest ICC Test rankings, Sutherland admitted that plenty of work had to be done to reinstate their position at the top.

"I don't think Cricket Australia is under any illusions as to where this team is at. We're definitely in a re-building phase after losing some of the best players to ever play cricket for Australia, and right now, what you get with a young and relatively inexperienced team is some ebbs and flows in performance.

"We saw a little bit of that in the Ashes series. Our best cricket was very, very good, and our not-so-good cricket, in a couple of critical moments, were really the reasons why we let the Ashes slip."

Commenting on likely changes to the selection panel, Sutherland said at least one position in the three-man panel, led by Andrew Hilditch, will be converted to a full-time role.

"The selection panel is to some extent, professional already. We have in recent times had a review, where we are now moving to a phase of becoming more professional in our approach to selection. It's not just selection, it's a matter of identifying talent and being partners in the development of talent and I think that's part of the review and going forward we'll be moving towards having at least one of the selection panel full time."

However, he ruled out the possibility of appointing the captain and coach to the panel, on the lines of what New Zealand Cricket adopted on Sunday. "The captain and the coach are always heavily consulted before matches but the structure that we prefer is for the selectors to be independent and making their own decisions and to be accountable for selection on that basis."

This is what Sutherland said, and this is utter BS, I agree with what he said regarding Ponting, but seriously why can't he just chuck away his ego and accept that they made a mistake, the first step to solving a problem is accepting that you have a problem, but people who are running things in CA atm obviously live in their own cacoon world, where they think everything they do is right.

This is what Sutherland said, and this is utter BS, I agree with what he said regarding Ponting, but seriously why can't he just chuck away his ego and accept that they made a mistake, the first step to solving a problem is accepting that you have a problem, but people who are running things in CA atm obviously live in their own cacoon world, where they think everything they do is right.

Totally AWTA.

But what do you expect really? These guys are politicians, if they admit all their mistakes there would be riot and they'd be out of job.

This is what Sutherland said, and this is utter BS, I agree with what he said regarding Ponting, but seriously why can't he just chuck away his ego and accept that they made a mistake, the first step to solving a problem is accepting that you have a problem, but people who are running things in CA atm obviously live in their own cacoon world, where they think everything they do is right.

I think Sutherland defending the selection of 4 seamers based on having won in SA with the same sort of attack is pretty weak. If one follows that train of thought why then was Hauritz included at Cardiff, when most of us (myself included) assumed he'd be left out?

I do have more sympathy for him saying we read the pitch wrongly too (although admittedly Panesar's woeful form for Northants mitigated against him playing anyway), but it's precisely because the reading of pitches isn't an exact science that I advocate a spinner where possible for such eventualities as The Oval.